


a song that went unsung

by thenightwing



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Just angst, THAT timeline, expand of 5x13, not sure it's gonna be beta-ed, un-betaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25844068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenightwing/pseuds/thenightwing
Summary: Thank you for reading! I wrote this to get the angst out of my system, so if you want to yell at me for it, come find me on Twitter at @silverbatsss
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	a song that went unsung

National City has always been chilly this time of year. Unlike most residents, Lena Luthor is one of the few that enjoys how her skin perks in goosebumps whenever the wind picks up.

She used to make jokes about how her body was always about as cold as her heart. Kara didn’t find it amusing.

Kara. That’s a name she hasn’t thought about in almost a year now.

She hasn’t thought of that name since the last time she went to the DEO and came upon the event that forever changed the course of her life.

_"Alex! Alex, what’s going on?! Where is she?!”_

_The older Danvers glowered, brown eyes glistening with angry tears as she smashed her hand into the concrete wall._

_Lena’s heart stopped, the air inside her lung ceased to travel to her brain._

_“They killed her. They killed Kara.”_

It had taken the whole staff of DEO agents to simultaneously calm Alex and soothe Lena into a semi-coherent state. Lena remembered talking about funeral arrangements on the phone like it was a business deal, how her voice was cold and detached just like the state of her heart and mind.

Even now, Lena likes the way her body adjusts to the cold. In her black coat and black skirt, she kneels and places a bouquet of plumerias next to her headstone.

_Kara Danvers_

_September 22 nd, 1990 – October 24th, 2018_

They had a very small ceremony, filled only with close friends and families.

Lena had met Barry and the rest of Kara’s friends from other worlds for the first time there. All of them ashen and devastated, grieving for the loss of a kind-hearted, beautiful soul that was once and forever will be cherished.

 _"I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”_ Or so they had told her.

Memories of the days after were a blur, followed by intense days of overwork at L-Corp and unhealthy binges of alcohol at nights. Sleep was almost always non-existent. At work, she was the first one to arrive and the last one to leave. It was the old normal before Kara came into her life, so to Lena, the change was an expected one.

Paparazzi everywhere reported of the CEO’s numerous breakdowns in her penthouse, going as far as publishing her thrashed home on the front page of every news. Catco tried their best to intercept, but the damage was done.

Everyone knows, from that moment on, Lena Luthor truly has no one left.

Knowing better to stay long lest she encounters Alex on her weekly visit, Lena presses a soft kiss to unforgivingly cold stone and leaves the cemetery.

Lena and Alex had a falling out not long after Kara’s funeral was all and done.

She still doesn’t know what had started it all, but when Alex Danvers burst into her office screaming about how Lena wasn’t there to save Kara, she knew it was time to say her piece.

Unsurprisingly, it only made things worse.

Now knowing she was with Sam in Metropolis the moment when Kara was struck down by the Kryptonite pollution, Alex became even more mad. There was a screaming match between them, Alex indignantly and tearfully recounting how Kara had always been the one to believe in Lena, how she only kept Supergirl a secret because Kara wanted to protect her. Lena doesn’t remember what she’s said throughout, consumed by whatever ghost of sorrow and heartbreak that her mouth ran in miles and miles and miles.

Eventually, Alex left the building and she took whatever’s left of Lena’s chosen family with her.

She didn’t dare to make contact with Nia, Brainy, Kelly, J’onn or even James. Lena knew, in their heart, they were always going to resent her for not being there. For not being the one to save Kara.

Which is why it takes her aback when her phone vibrates with a text, something very rare nowadays since she’s made the decision to live the rest of her sad life by her lone self. The request for her to come to the DEO was surprising, but expected.

Lena’s never felt more like an outsider than when she returns to the DEO.

She doesn’t see Alex, or any of the Superfriends for that matter, which is odd considering the older Danvers requested her here to consult about L-Corp’s new and innovated alien detection device, used only for medical purposes.

Following Alex’s instructions, she opened a steel door.

What she sees inside, she never would have thought to see at the DEO. Nor anywhere else, to be honest.

“Kara?”

In truth, inside of the room she just opened is Kara.

Lena’s heart bursts inside her chest, feelings of elation and confusion merge together into one. Ever the scientist, she steps foot inside and the door automatically closes shut.

She calls out once more, not knowing whether this is her having hallucinations out of sleep deprivation like her therapist had warned or reality. A reality where Kara is alive and well and is smiling at her.

“Kara?”

“Hi, Lena.”

A sob catches in her throat, overwhelmed by the sound of her name in Kara’s voice. Lena blinks repeatedly, trying to stop her tears. She can’t quite help her smile, verging on a grin as she takes in the love of her life.

Kara’s wearing a white robe-ish kind of dress that Lena’s only seen on Alura’s in the DEO’s archives about Kryptonians. Her blonde hair is long and wavy, flowing past her shoulders just like the last time Lena’s saw her as Supergirl. Blue eyes sparkle like the Caribbean sea, warm and kind just like the Kara Lena knows and loves.

“Hi…” she shakily replies. “I don’t understand, how? I thought you were dead, Kara.”

“That’s because she is.”

Lena flinches at the foreign voice, turning around to find a stone-faced Alex Danvers.

The agent looks her age more than ever, dark circles a permanent feature on her face and her fists curled tight close to her body. Lena fears Alex might actually hit her, so she subtly takes a step back.

“Alex…”

“This is an artificial interactive intelligence program from Kara’s old pod. It was implemented into her ship by her parents just before Krypton exploded, with the purpose of educating and assisting Kara in times of need. The original one had Alura’s hologram, which we used as a resource for galactic beings all over the universe.”

“So this is… not Kara?”

Lena imagines Alex can hear the way her broken heart just shatters even more, and that’s why her stony expression softens. Brown piercing eyes look into greens, a link of shared pain and agony forming in a matter of second.

“Yeah. It’s not really her, but…” she pauses, glancing at hologram-Kara for a millisecond “…yeah.”

She should have known better to expect something else. Kara is dead, has been dead for over a year.

“Why--…” her voice cracks, berating herself for indulging in a moment of weakness. “Why did you call me here, Alex?”

A part of Lena thinks this is Alex’s way to punish her. Giving her a glimpse of the dead to torture her guilt-ridden soul even more.

“I told you. I need your help with the alien detection device.”

_But why here? Why did you make me see her? See this?_

“I’m assuming we need a Kryptonian’s range of expert knowledge to solve the problem at hand.” Is what she chooses to say. She reckons Alex can see through her anyway, judging by the slight slant of lips and her soft nod.

The conversation doesn’t last long. They only need confirmation on certain things like the heritages of some aliens locked in DEO prison, what huge red flags should they take into consideration when publishing the device and all that business stuffs.

It’s not until nearly the end, when Alex thanks Kara (“Hologram Kara! Not Kara!”) for her help, that Lena realizes she might never get to see Kara ever again.

Feeling an onslaught of fresh tears about to come, Lena bites hard on her lower lip, desperate to stop the inevitable.

Via some miracle, Alex starts talking about some forms she needed Lena to look over and leaves the room.

Now alone, Lena really takes notice of how this Kara is not _her_ Kara.

Blue eyes, despite containing familiar warmth, aren’t quite as beautiful as the ones Lena always stared into during game nights and brunch dates. Her smiles aren’t burning the insides of Lena’s soul and makes her yearn like Kara’s once did. And the way she says Lena’s name is almost the same but she can’t find a trace of affectionate teasing and playfulness that embodied inside Kara Danvers as a friend.

She and the hologram stare at each other for a while, the latter’s smile unrelenting and unreal.

Lena doesn’t notice the tracks of tears running down her cheeks till she tastes them on her lips as she calls out again “Kara?”

“Yes, Lena?”

She thinks back to that eventful day, remembering the shrill of fear and anxiety as she sits in her jet and silently urges the pilot to go faster. She can feel the pang of despair of getting to the DEO and knowing she couldn’t do anything more, because Kara was dead. Kara was dead because she couldn’t make it. Kara was dead because of her.

“I’m sorry, Kara…” she finally says, the apology ridden with guilt, love and remorse.

The hologram soullessly smiles back at her, eyes clueless to the turmoil of tidal waves crashing inside her head.

Lena sniffs, the clog in her throat reminds her of what Kara must’ve felt flying in the Kryptonite-fueled sky.

Hurt, in pain, and knowing that was it for her.

She chokes on her tears, knowing the last words she ever said to Kara was “You expected me to be your partner when all you did was prove to me you can’t be trusted at all?”

“I’m sorry for not seeing the truth. I’m sorry for making you felt like you couldn’t tell me…”

On the day Lena met Kara, the sun was shining bright and Lena had almost died. Kara was so shy and timid, trailing after Clark Kent like a puppy one minute and saving her from a plane crash the next.

“I’m sorry for making you unable to trust me… I’m sorry for not trusting you…”

When Kara first invited her to brunch, the sky was blue like Supergirl’s eyes and Lena’s heart slowly thawed out of its ice cage at their first tryst of friendship.

“I’m sorry for I couldn’t have been more…”

During Lena’s first game night, Kara called Lena her best friend for the first time with wide doe eyes and smiling lips occupied with potstickers and pizza. Lena fell in love then.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me the most…”

On the day of Kara’s funeral, Lena didn’t shed a single tear.

“I’m sorry, Kara! I’m so sorry! Please, I miss you! I miss you so much…”

The hologram’s smile serves only as a reminder of Lena’s biggest mistake. That she chose to walk away from the love of her life because of some foolish secret that could have been resolved had they talked. That could have been resolved had she not thrown Kara’s feelings of insecure back in her face. That could have been resolved had she chosen to put her feelings in little boxes and hear Kara out.

She should have stayed. She shouldn’t have gone to see Sam. She should have stayed and saved Kara.

“I miss you!” Lena screams, now on her knees as memories after memories come back, flashing through her very eyes.

Kara’s smiles when Lena did good. Kara’s hugs when Lena felt sad. Kara’s love when Lena needed someone to love and someone who loved her.

She misses it all. She misses Kara. She misses her like the sun misses the moon and the sky misses its stars.

She misses the warm hugs, the happy smiles, the joyful looks, the yearning burns.

“I love you, please. Please come back to me, Kara. Please!”

Just outside the door, Alex Danvers nods to herself and leaves the premise. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I wrote this to get the angst out of my system, so if you want to yell at me for it, come find me on Twitter at @silverbatsss


End file.
